Using Net::HTTP.get for an https url

Solution 1:

Original answer:

uri = URI.parse("https://example.com/some/path")
http = Net::HTTP.new(uri.host, uri.port)
http.use_ssl = true
@data = http.get(uri.request_uri)

As pointed out in the comments, this is more elegant:

require "open-uri"
@data = URI.parse("https://example.com/some/path").read

Solution 2:

EDIT: My approach works, but @jason-yeo's approach is far easier.

It appears as of 2.1.2 the preferred a documented method is as follows (directly quoting the documentation):

HTTPS is enabled for an HTTP connection by #use_ssl=.

uri = URI('https://secure.example.com/some_path?query=string')

Net::HTTP.start(uri.host, uri.port,   
  :use_ssl => uri.scheme == 'https') do |http|
  request = Net::HTTP::Get.new uri

  response = http.request request # Net::HTTPResponse object 
end 

In previous versions of Ruby you would need to require ‘net/https’ to use HTTPS. This is no longer true.

Solution 3:

In Ruby 2.0.0 and above, simply passing in an uri object with a https url is sufficient to do a HTTPS get request.

uri = URI('https://encrypted.google.com')
Net::HTTP.get(uri)

You may verify this by performing a get request on a domain with an expired certificate.

uri = URI('https://expired.badssl.com/')
Net::HTTP.get(uri)
# OpenSSL::SSL::SSLError: SSL_connect returned=1 errno=0 state=error: certificate verify failed

It was introduced by this commit in Ruby 2.0.0.

The get_response method, which is called by the Net::HTTP.get method, sets :use_ssl to true when the uri.scheme is "https".

Disclaimer: I understand that the question is for Ruby 1.8.7, but since this is one of the top few search results when one searches for "https ruby", I've decided to answer anyway.

Solution 4:

this should look as:

uri.port = Net::HTTP.https_default_port()
@data = Net::HTTP.get(uri)